


A splash of red to tie the threads

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Blood, Crusades, Fate, First Killings, First Meetings, Immortality, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: They found themselves on opposite sides of a battle filled with blood and the palor of their dead comrades in arms.Their blood though? Coagulates always.Their deaths? Are never permanent.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Short August Medieval Exchange 2020





	A splash of red to tie the threads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dissembler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dissembler/gifts).



Blood, a smattering of it that tells of a gush that is trickling down, thinning out, almost over. Until it freezes, thickens on the skin, hardens, and disappears into the man's forehead, right back into the wound it came out of to begin with. Nicolò watches, mouth agape, unsure whether to run away, back to the camps, back to the cross in his tent to kneel and pray and look for answers, or stay, and keep watch as the man he just killed comes back alive. It makes no sort of sense. None of the scriptures talk of what he sees but in the retellings of Jesus' life and death and resuscitation. None of his prayers know how to articulate what he ends up observing with his own eyes as the Muslim's start blinking open again. It is very slow, but then again, it should not be possible. Nicolò thinks perhaps he hit his head harder than he thought when that arrow grazed him earlier. He thinks maybe, the demons of this place are invading his mind at last. 

He does not get to ponder further, because the Muslim is awake and looking at him with the wide eyes of fear at first, and then the slitted ones of determination as he stands and prepares to launch for him, although carefully. He seems as startled as Nicolò is, but the words out of his mouth are from a tongue Nicolò does not speak, and so, when the man truly advances towards him, rather than fight him again, Nicolò runs. 

The reprieve the commanding ranks announce when Nicolò is back at camp is welcome, although it means he is pacing in his tent pulling on his hair, trying to figure the meaning of what he has just witnessed. It has been hours soon, and then it has been days without him seeing the Muslim again, and yet Nicolò still feels out of breath, his armor heavier than before where it sits on his shoulders. The heavy fabrics of his tent do not bring sleep at night, nor do his repeated prayers and sacrifices of his flesh. None of it seems to bring the awakening Nicolò despairs for. 

* * *

He's run to see it this time. He's determined to see it happen, just like the other man has done with him the last times, Yusuf might like to pretend he does not remember how many occurrences there have been but he does — four times, he has been killed, four times he has been alive again. What he does not know is how long it took him, and how long it will take this man to do it too. For he does resuscitate from Yusuf's strikes as well, only Yusuf has not yet been able to watch it happen. 

So he runs, away from his brothers in arms, away from the rubble of battle, he runs to the cave in the rock he's seen the man fall into, he runs to see the blood pooling around his head where he shot his arrow at him. He runs, to see his pale skin grow paler and paler even as blood leaves his body to stain the ground beneath him, and the cloth under the links of his armor. Yusuf gasps, and falls to his knees when he first sees the trembling of the man's fingers, undead. 

He splays out his palms on the sandy, dirty, holy ground and cries as he sees the man's jaw working under his skin, just before his chest sinks in and he heaves a breath in, and he is alive, and he is opening his eyes. Yusuf does not know how the man ran away from him every other time this happened and he was in his place, laying half-awake but still not dead. His own legs would not carry him if he tried right now, that he knows. 

That's the only thing he knows anymore. That, and his faith, like a beacon, keeping him still, thinking there must be a reason why he gets to witness this, why Allah has decided he should bear sight of a life that will not quit. Yusuf stays rooted to the hard and cold ground of the cave they find themselves in, watching the clear blue eyes of his enemy as he stares right back at him, frowning, filled with mist, confusion, and fear. 

"Cosa ci sta succedendo?"

Yusuf recognizes the Italian language, and although he does not speak it, he can understand the feeling behind the words and their tone well enough. He shakes his head, his jaw tight as they stare at each other and a new understanding downs on them both — the knowledge that they are now bound, by whatever this is that makes them unable to end in the same way they have watched hundreds of others do around them, falling lifeless on the battlefield, abandoned by the spark of life to recover in the eternity of their deities' havens. They are kept out, kept onto this Earth, to breathe and walk uncharted paths. 

Yusuf blinks, tears do not seem appropriate any longer. He squares his shoulders, places his dagger back in its sheath at his hip under the heavy scrutiny of his counterpart, and straightens up on his ankles. He breathes deep, dares to close his eyes for all of a few seconds, and finally reaches a hand towards the man. 

It stays there, open palm and questioning fingers, between them, dissected by the bluest eyes Yusuf has ever seen, and then it happens — "Nicolò," the man grunts as he takes Yusuf's hand to pull himself to a sitting position, "Io mi chiamo Nicolò." 

Yusuf nods, distracted by the sheer warmth of his fingers, returned from the dead bare minutes before. 

"Yusuf," he says eventually, and in these introductions, in their handshake, Yusuf senses an immensity of possibilities, he senses a wind of unknown openings, a gush of air, that will take them far away from here, where blood has splattered all across the hills and hollows, and onto pastures unexplored. 

Together, as strange and unspoken as it is, is what the threads of fate have decided. 

**Author's Note:**

> "Cosa ci sta succedendo?" _"What's happening to us?"_


End file.
